Is an IQ of 141 good?
Yes. An IQ of 141 is exceptionally high, well inside the top 1% of the population. It is beyond the entry level of Mensa and Intertel.
Where 141 sits on the bell curve
An IQ of 141 is 41 points above the average of 100, or 2.73 standard deviations. It is higher than about 99.7% of people of the same age, shown by the shaded area below. This is the far right tail of the curve, where only a few people in every thousand score.
On other IQ scales, the same result would be about 144 on a test with a standard deviation of 16, such as older editions of the Stanford-Binet, and 166 on the Cattell scale, which uses 24. Why scales differ.
IQ 141 meaning: a closer look
At 141, you are ahead of about 99.7% of people, roughly one in 319. That is just past the 140 level and eleven points above the Mensa threshold. In a stadium of 50,000, about 160 people would score 141 or above. At this level, most standard IQ tests are approaching the upper limit of what they can measure precisely, so specialised tests are sometimes used for very high scorers.
Do high-IQ brains work less hard? The neural efficiency idea
In 1988, Richard Haier and colleagues used PET scans to measure how much glucose the brain used while 8 young men solved Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, a demanding reasoning test. Those who scored higher tended to use less energy across the cortex, not more. This became the "neural efficiency" hypothesis. A 2009 review by Aljoscha Neubauer and Andreas Fink found that later studies were mixed. Efficiency showed up mainly on tasks of low to moderate difficulty and mostly in frontal areas, while on very complex tasks more able people tended to use more brain resources.
So the idea that a 141 IQ brain simply coasts is too neat. The pattern depends on how hard a task feels to the person, and on practice: the review notes that efficiency also seems to grow with learning, as people develop better strategies. The first study was also very small. For someone with an IQ of 141, the fairest summary is that familiar or moderately hard tasks may take relatively less brain effort, while truly difficult problems can still call for full effort, just as they do for everyone else.
Sources: Haier et al. (1988), "Cortical glucose metabolic rate correlates of abstract reasoning and attention studied with positron emission tomography", Intelligence, 12(2), 199 to 217; Neubauer and Fink (2009), "Intelligence and neural efficiency", Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 33(7), 1004 to 1023.
What 141 looks like among real people
If you lined up 100 people of your age, all or nearly all of them would score lower than 141. You would need a group of about 319 people to expect one person scoring this high or higher. The orange dot marks your place in the line.
In a school of 1,000 pupils, you would expect only about 4 to score 140 or higher.
How precise is a score of 141?
No IQ test measures to the exact point. On a professional test, a result of 141 usually comes with a likely range of about five points either way: 136 to 146. That range runs from the 99.1th to the 99.8th percentile, all within the very superior range.
Most tests have very few people in their norm groups at this level, so scores here are the least precise on the scale and can differ noticeably between tests.
On the Assessivo test, each correct answer is worth about 2.5 points, so 141 falls between two possible results: 140 for 34 correct answers and 143 for 35. How our score is worked out.
So if you scored 141 once, a retest on another day could reasonably land anywhere from 136 to 146. Online tests are less precise still, so treat any online result as a rough estimate.
IQ 141 and mental age in children
Early IQ tests for children worked with a "mental age", the age whose typical performance a child matched. The IQ was that mental age divided by the child's real age, times 100. Turned around, the formula shows what a score of 141 would have meant for children of different ages: working ahead of their years.
| Real age | Mental age at IQ 141 |
|---|---|
| 5 | 7 years 1 month |
| 7 | 9 years 10 months |
| 9 | 12 years 8 months |
| 11 | 15 years 6 months |
| 13 | 18 years 4 months |
The same 141 stands for a gap of about 2 years 1 month at age 5 but 5 years 4 months at 13, because the formula scales with age. That is one reason it broke down for teenagers and adults, whose test performance stops rising every year. Today's tests compare you with people of the same age instead, so a mental age is only a way to picture a child's score, never a description of an adult.
What an IQ of 141 means for you
It sits near the top of the very superior band, which runs from 130 to 145.
- You likely handle complex, abstract problems with an ease that very few people share.
- Scores this rare are hard to measure exactly, so a single result is best read as "very high", not as a precise number.
- Research on very able people finds that ability keeps helping even at the top, but interests, effort and opportunity still shape what people achieve.
How far 141 is from other levels
Famous names reported near 141
Very few famous people have published IQ scores, and most numbers online are invented. These are the ones with a documented report or a published estimate. Each is labelled so you can see what kind of figure it is.
Rated by psychologist Catharine Cox in 1926 from records of his early life: about 135 for childhood (to age 17) and 140 for ages 17 to 26. Estimates like these are rough, and he never took an IQ test.
Published estimate, not a test · Cox, Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II (1926)Rated by psychologist Catharine Cox in 1926 from records of his early life: about 135 for childhood (to age 17) and 140 for ages 17 to 26. Estimates like these are rough, and he never took an IQ test.
Published estimate, not a test · Cox, Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II (1926)Rated by psychologist Catharine Cox in 1926 from records of his early life: about 135 for childhood (to age 17) and 140 for ages 17 to 26. Estimates like these are rough, and he never took an IQ test.
Published estimate, not a test · Cox, Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II (1926)How 141 compares with nearby scores
Want a score that isn't listed, or the share of people between two scores? Try the IQ calculator.
| IQ | Percentile | Classification | Score this high or higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 131 | 98th | Very superior | 1 in 52 |
| 136 | 99.1th | Very superior | 1 in 122 |
| 141 | 99.6th | Very superior | 1 in 319 |
| 146 | 99.8th | Very superior | 1 in 924 |
| 151 | 99.9th | Very superior | 1 in 2,968 |
Questions about an IQ of 141
What percentile is an IQ of 141?
An IQ of 141 is at about the 99.6th percentile, which means it is higher than about 99.7% of people of the same age.
Is 141 a high IQ?
Yes. 141 is a high IQ by any common definition, in the top one percent of the population.
Can an IQ of 141 get into Mensa?
On most tests, yes. Mensa accepts people who score in the top 2% on an approved, supervised test, which is 130 or above on tests that use a standard deviation of 15. Online test scores are not accepted.
How common is an IQ of 141 or higher?
About 0.31% of people score 141 or higher, roughly 1 in 319. In a stadium of 50,000 people, about 157 would score at this level or above.
Does a 141 IQ brain use less energy?
Sometimes. Early brain scans found that people who scored higher on a reasoning test used less glucose while solving it. Later research showed this mostly holds for easy to moderate tasks. On very complex problems, more able people often use more brain resources, not fewer. So a 141 IQ is not a sign of a brain that always works less hard.
What mental age is an IQ of 141?
Under the old ratio formula, a 9-year-old with an IQ of 141 would perform like a typical child of about 12 years 8 months, roughly 44 months ahead. The idea only works for children: an adult who scores 141 simply did better than most adults of the same age on the test.
Is an IQ of 141 a genius IQ?
In everyday use, 140 or more is often called genius level, but no professional test uses the word. It is an exceptionally high score.
How rare is an IQ above 140?
About 4 people in 1,000 score 140 or higher, roughly 1 in 260. That is on the standard scale with a standard deviation of 15.
Can an online test measure an IQ of 141?
Not reliably. Few online tests have enough very hard questions or the data to tell 140 from 145. A supervised professional test is the only way to confirm a score this high.
For the very top of the scale, see the highest IQ in the world, and for the benchmarks, what is a good IQ score?. Every score range is in the IQ range chart.
A full IQ score of 141 combines several skills. Our guides explain each one: abstract reasoning, spatial reasoning, verbal reasoning, processing speed and fluid vs crystallized intelligence, or try the free pattern recognition test.
Famous names are often linked to scores like 141, with or without a source. We checked the evidence behind Elon Musk's IQ, Garry Kasparov's IQ, Terence Tao's IQ, Einstein's IQ, Isaac Newton's IQ, Nikola Tesla's IQ, Stephen Hawking's IQ and Bill Gates' IQ.
What would you score?
Take the free Assessivo IQ test: 36 questions, 25 minutes, and your estimated IQ score and percentile as soon as you finish.
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